


Without Me You'd Just Disappear

by Catchclaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean breaks it off with Cas because it's best for all involved. But even his defenses can't withstand Cas in a fedora, and hell: when the boy starts to sing? Dean's done for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Me You'd Just Disappear

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for homophobic slurs and terrible parenting.

It was all Sam’s fault.

He was the one who dragged Dean to the show with some bullshit about school spirit and supporting their friends as a pretense.

Hell, looking back, it was so obvious that Dean wondered if that wasn't the point. If Sam hadn't planned it that way. To put the whole thing in plain sight so Dean would be sure not to see.

They made to the auditorium just in time, five minutes to spare tops, and the place was freaking _packed_.

“What the hell?” Dean sputtered.

Sam grabbed him by the elbow. “Told you!” he huffed. “C'mon.”

Dean let the puppy tug him down to front row center where a sea of giggly blonde parted to make room.

“Hey Dean,” Jess chirped.

“Hi Dean!” Jo popped.

“Heya Dean,” Pamela purred.

“Um, hi,” Dean managed. “Everybody.”

He fell into a seat, grateful. Felt Sam tip in beside him.

Sam, who was grinning like an idiot.

Like, more than usual.

Again: this shoulda been a warning.

That, and the girl twitters that the rest of the row was sending his way, all lashes and teeth and big, big smiles.

Hell, Becky was practically bouncing in her seat.

But that was Becky's MO on a good day, so.

Sam pushed a program into his hands and Dean barely had a chance to glance at the thing, to see one big name pop up from the page before the house lights went down and all eyes turned up to the stage.

Cas.

Cas.

Cas.

The name flashed behind Dean's eyeballs in the dark as the curtain creaked up and he thought: _Shit. Oh no. Oh shit_.

He'd sort of vaguely been aware of this play-musical thing, _City of Angels_. That Cas was in it. Ok, that Cas was the freaking star.

It wasn't something he wanted to know, ok, but he'd heard people buzzing about it all week in trig and French and AP physics: How great Cas was. What a voice he had. What comic timing. How he was even better in this one than in _As You Like It_ last year and wasn't it great he had a showcase like this as a senior.

So much talent, they said. So much promise. And you'd never guess it, just from looking. He's so quiet, someone would sigh. So calm. So serious when he's not on stage.

 _Which was bullshit_ , Dean'd thought every time. Cas was one of the funniest people he knew, but nobody bothered to look for it when he wasn't in the spotlight.

Nobody but Dean.

And it wasn't like Dean could hide from it now, from Cas, now that he was trapped in the front freaking row with a wall of Sam on one side and a blonde bulwark on the other and oh, god, he was so totally screwed.

Especially when Cas made his entrance. Swept in from the wings like he owned the place, which, oh, he so totally did. He was a tough-talking, hard-loving private eye in this one, draped in a gorgeous suit with a fedora tugged low over one eye and Dean was drooling even before Cas opened his mouth and then when he started to sing—

 _Fuck_. It went right to Dean's heart.

And, ok. His dick, too.

God, he missed Cas.

It'd been like trying to fly with one wing, these last two months. Without Cas at his side.

He'd felt upended, unmoored, totally out of his element that spring. And it _sucked_.

But when he felt really shitty—one hand hovering over the phone, one eye peeled down the hallway between sixth and seventh period—some part of him would shout in a voice way too much like his dad’s:

 _It’s all your fault_.

And all the air would fall out of him. He’d deflate like a Macy’s Day Snoopy and slink off to his bedroom, his car, the stairs behind the loading dock to steep in his own despair.

Because yeah. He’d done it to himself.

If only he hadn't been a complete idiot over Christmas, one night just before the big day. If only he hadn't nicked a few beers from the fridge just to see Cas get sloppy, those blue eyes short-circuiting in the glow of John McClain’s gun.

"I can't believe you've never seen this before," Dean said for at least the fifth time, the beer hot in his face. "It's, like, a Christmas tradition."

Cas lolled his head back and rolled his eyes. "Dean. It's rated R. You know how my dad is about shit like that."

Dean laughed. Knocked his knee into Cas' shoulder and leaned down off the couch. "And how'd he feel about you using language like that, son?"

Cas smirked. "He'd say that you're a bad influence, asshat.” He tapped Dean's cheek, his fingers cool from the can. "And he'd be right."

"Pfft," Dean said, big stupid grin. "You're the one harloting yourself out on the stage."

Cas groaned and shoved Dean away. "Shut _up_."

"No, no!" Dean chirped, rolling with it, rolling himself off the couch and up. "That's what Mrs. DeThomas said, Cas. It's historical." He pitched his voice up and twirled, veering towards the tree. "Now _actors_ , children, were seen as prostitutes, no better than common whores who sold their bodies for the—"

"Shut up!" Cas squealed, lurching up like a drunken calf, his limbs going in four different directions at once. "That was fucking Shakespeare, Dean, and it was girls who— _oh_!" He stumbled and did a full van Dyke over the ottoman, flailing like an electrocuted starfish, and splashed down into the lower branches of the tree.

“Ow!”

"Shhh!" Dean said, 180 degrees from a whisper. "Keep it down! You’ll wake everybody up, man!" He took two steps and fumbled for his friend in the tinsel, giggling like a idiot even as the fucking evil tree stabbed his elbows.

"Fuck!" he grunted. "Little help here, Cas."

Cas wriggled out of his grasp and shot up, teetering like crazy. His face was bright red and his eyes were blinking faster than the Christmas lights. "Hee!" he wheezed, batting at his sweater and grinning the shit of Dean's face. "You motherfucker."

Dean grabbed him again, got two hands on his shoulders and pushed--and that's where it went bad.

If only he'd kept his hands where they belonged and not driven Cas into the wall next to the freaking tree, not kicked packages aside and broken a few ornaments in his eagerness. If only he hadn’t kissed Cas out of nowhere, inevitable, perfect, like if he didn't get Cas' tongue tangled in his own right now, right the fuck now, they'd both die, shrivel up and crumble and blow away.

And, god. If only Cas hadn’t made the sweetest, most desperate sound that Dean’d ever heard. If he hadn’t pushed himself into Dean's hands even as he plastered himself to the wall, let Dean cover him, hold him, pin him as Alan Rickman purred over gratuitous gunfire. As something exploded.

Yeah. Yeah it did.

Dean slid his hands up under Cas' Arctic-level sweater, got two big handfuls of ribs and skin and rubbed his palms against the kettle drum of Cas' heart. And Cas met him halfway, like he always did. Except this time it wasn't chess or soccer or some stupid scene Cas was running lines for. This time it was kissing. It was Cas pressing up and moaning like what Dean was doing wasn't enough, nowhere even close, like the things Cas wanted would require sustained, persistent nudity and god, Dean was so on board with that.

It was like—he'd never wanted anything, anyone, as bad as he wanted Cas right then, so bad he stopped thinking, left his higher brain functions in the tinsel and dragged Cas back to the couch. Pulled the boy breathless into his lap and picked right back up with the kissing and touching with an extra bonus of grinding, Cas' dick stuttering over his own and even through two tons of denim it felt amazing, Cas did, especially with the sounds they were making together, god.

Fucking music, they were. Better than any yippee ki-yay.

Cas' sweater went first, then Dean's shirt. They made out all uncoordinated and spastic, both of them laughing, giggling through kisses until Cas shoved Dean back into the scratchy-ass cushions and made straight for Dean's zipper.

And wow. The look on his face, then. The wee part of Dean's brain still capable of words went for "reverent" and then Cas touched his cock and fuck if Dean could see straight, much less think anything other than:

"Cas—oh fuck! Jesus, Cas!"

"Shhh," Cas hummed, tugging Dean's lip through his teeth. "Be quiet, baby.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn't the one having his cock jerked through heaven, the one whose ear was full up of Cas' confident whispers—

"Yeah, Dean, like that? So good, knew it would be, wanted to touch you like this for so long. Oh, Dean. You’re so beautiful. Making me so hard, god, you feel that? You feel what you’re doing to me?"

No, Cas wasn't the one whose thigh was being ridden like a hobby horse. He wasn’t the one wringing Cas' waist in his hands to keep from screaming, wasn't the one whose father was—

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

—bellowing from the top of the stairs.

And Dean's body, being awesome, took Cas' gasp and his own fear as a firestarter and he freaking came like a cannon in Cas' hand, hot and sticky and dirty as hell, and he had exactly 0.2 seconds to enjoy that before Cas leapt away, scrabbling for his shirt as the bull blew into the china shop, scattering presents like kindling and shouting something Dean didn't want to hear.

"Goddamn it, Dean! What the hell are you doing? What gives you the right to pull this kind of shit in _my_ house, boy?"

And the only good thing about getting hit, about his dad's fist in his cheek, was that it gave Cas time to flee, to hit the exit at a full gallop, and once Dean heard the door slam, the bells in the holly wreath chatter, he relaxed.

A beating, he knew how to handle. Even if the circumstances were sorta—unique.

It didn't last long—Dad was too sloshed to do any real damage—but he did cycle through his gay slur repertoire pretty damn fast. He was on his second round of homo, sliding in towards queer, when he ran out of steam. Left Dean under the tree, panting, and mummied his way back up the stairs.

Dean had a mouthful of pine needles and two Christmas lights trapped in his hair, but none of it washed Cas away. Not the blood or the timeworn creep to his bedroom, silent. Not the chill of the sheets over new bruises or the hitch in Sam's breath in the next bed when Dean settled down for the night.

“Dean,” Sam said in the morning, shoving tears and snot of his face. Trying to be brave, a little kid still, even inside that hydra body. "Are you ok? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I woke up and I heard him yelling and I shoulda come down to help but I got scared, Dean, I'm sorry, and—"

“Shhh,” Dean said, reaching across the seat, one hand snaked around the wheel. “Sammy. S'ok. You did the right thing. Stayin’ out of it. Wasn't your fight.”

“Not yours either,” Sam sighed. He slid over and pushed his face hot on Dean's shoulder. “No reason for him to do that. To hurt you. Or Cas.”

“Shhh,” Dean said again, shoving the image out of his head, the ones of Cas draped over him, jacking him, loving him all mixed up with fear. “S'ok, Sam. I got you.”

So Dean had done what he was necessary, what he had to, to keep everybody safe: he'd steered clear of Cas cold turkey, without so much as a word or a touch or _I'm sorry_. Hadn't called him over break, not once. Made Sam answer the phone when it rang, make excuses. Christmas went by in a rush and he spent most of it curled into himself, smoking cheap menthols and only speaking when spoken to.

“Where’s Cas?” everybody asked when they came over, Jess peeking around the corners and Becky poking her head in the kitchen.

“Dunno,” Dean’d say, looking away.

“Um,” Sam said, sheepish. “Not here.”

The first day back, in January, he just walked right past Cas in the hallway, cold. Stopped sitting with him in French, stopped eating lunch by the vending machines, stopped picking him up after rehearsal, just. Stopped.

And it’d been two months of that shit. Two months of missing the kid whose body he ached for, whose voice rang in his ears as he slept. Cas, who'd been his friend for four years and his—whatever for like 20 minutes and fuck, Dean was lonely. More than that.

He was alone.

He kept his head down at school like he did at home and nothing changed in the grand scheme of the world, of high school. Nobody said anything about it, except Sam, and in time even he gave up. He stopped bugging Dean about it, stopped begging him to call Cas, to see him, talk to him, _something_. 

But, on the plus side, nobody got hit, either. No lips were split or uptight parents called and after a while Dean figured out that his dad had forgotten, didn't remember a goddamn drunken thing about what he’d seen, what he’d said, and for once, Dean said a prayer of thanks to the gods of Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo.

Even if his dreams were full of Cas' hands. Even if he woke up with his skin on fire and his heart aching, yeah. It was ok. They were.

He wasn't.

And it hit him hard, how not ok he was on his own, now that he was free to watch Cas, devour the boy with his eyes, drunk on the knowledge that he could fucking stare all he wanted and drown in that voice, pin his eyes to that gorgeous mouth and pretend it was him that Cas was kissing, was touching like that with everybody looking—

“You're nothing without me,” Cas sang to his onstage counterpart, his character's creator—some meta-fantastical shit, this show—and Dean thought: _yeah_. Damn right he wasn't.

When the curtain hit at intermission, he didn’t hesitate: he fucking vaulted over the girl brigade and beat it for backstage. Ducked out of the auditorium, shoved past the refreshment table, banged through the moldy prop room. Barged into the dressing room at a full freaking gallop.

"Hey!" someone shouted. "You can't—!"

And there was Cas, face turned to the wall of mirrors, fedora perched high on his head.

"Dean," he said calmly. "Um. Hello."

Dean shot over and spun him, right there in the middle of the goddamn room. Didn't give a shit who could see.

"Castiel," he said, so not fucking calm. "Cas, I—"

Cas smiled at him, his eyes winking like they had under the tree.

"Dean. You know, it is customary for the audience to show its appreciation for the performers after the show has concluded. Not before.”

Dean grinned. Snagged his fingers in Cas' vest and met his eye. “Well. Sorry I didn't bring you flowers.”

“That's ok,” Cas said, curling into Dean's arms like he'd never left. “I'll accept kisses in their stead.”

And only Cas could make senior citizen speak like "in their stead" sound sexy, but maybe that was just his smile, the hot curve of his lips against Dean's and the flick of tongue— _you little shit_ , Dean thought. _Never could do something half-assed_. So Dean opened his mouth and did what he always did. Let Cas meet him halfway.

"You've got makeup on your face," Cas said after a minute, beautifully breathless. "Dean. You're a mess."

Dean pushed his thumb over Cas' lips and gave the rest of his lipstick a run for its money. "And whose fault is that?" he said, soft. "Hmm?"

Cas shifted and he blushed so hard his makeup couldn't fight it.

"It would be out of character for Detective Stone to show up in Act II with a boner, don't you think?"

"Eh," Dean said. "No idea. You're the one who knows how the story ends."

"Yeah," Cas whispered, leaning up for a kiss. "Yeah, Dean. I do."

**

Later, sprawled wet and happy in the backseat, Dean turned snow angels into Cas’ shoulders, his fingers drifting into the banks of Cas’ spine.

"I so owe Sam for this," he sighed.

Cas laughed, a hoarse little puff of pleasure. "What makes you think it was your brother’s idea?"

Dean's heart freaking leaped in his chest. “What?!” he squawked.

Cas sat up a little, his smirk a high beam in the darkness. "Come on. Give me a modicum of credit here, Dean.” His face softened. “I missed you, ok? I missed you so goddamn bad.”

Dean reached out and shoved a hand through Cas' hair. "That so?” he hummed, watching Cas shudder at his touch. “So you’re a playwright now, is that it? You writing the story of my life from now on? If so, it better as fuck be rated R, at least. None of that PG-13 shit, ok?"

Cas huffed and pitched over, fast. Slid out of Dean’s hand and grabbed the fedora from the floor. Cocked it perfect on his head, oh. Gave Dean this bad-guy grin.

“Goddamn,” Dean groaned, because fuck if his cock didn’t love that look, that mouth, the way Cas was eyeing him like a freaking T-Bone steak.

"Hmmm," Cas graveled, the sound rumbling in Dean’s belly. He slithered, all easy grace, and ducked his head under Dean's hips. Peered up from under the brim. "As they say,” he growled, quick tongue flick. “Yippee ki-yay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the original cast of [City of Angels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Angels_\(musical\)) singing “[You’re Nothing Without Me](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3xSH667_Qk).” It’s a writer’s musical, filled with terrible innuendo and great songs. Maybe this is where my love of meta comes from…


End file.
